Syria Violence

I look out at my dogs play-fighting in the sun with the sound of gun fire piercing the scene and I recognise that this is paradise, comparatively paradise. I wish I could swap my life for the lives of those two boys, I'd willingly do so that they could make it to safety, maybe to the 'apparent' safety of the Calais Jungle where they could be with other children attending a makeshift school.

Syria's quite a large country; how are we going to sustain a campaign fighting on several fronts? If we are going up against the Syrian government AND Islamic State we would need quite a lot of soldiers on the ground...

Khaled sits down in what appears to be an awkward position, his back against the wall. Half sitting, half lying. It is how he sat in his cell in Damaskus. During a total of 12 months, locked up in a cell too small to lie down in, and not high enough to stand up, Khaled was tortured by the Syrian Security forces...

As reported by the national press, the young girl is called Hudea and she was photographed in December 2014 at the Atmeh refugee camp in Syria, near the Turkish border, where she had travelled with her mother and two siblings, roughly 150km from their home in Hama.

It is a rich and nuanced piece touching on all the points that the arrival of ISIS has raised in Syria and Iraq. Typos aside, this is an important contribution to the emerging literature on ISIS and will surely be on any academic reading list for years to come.

All we can do is continue to provide lifesaving aid and push for solutions, despite the challenges stacked against us. It's important to recognise what we are able to achieve - the international community must keep investing in humanitarian relief and striving for a sustainable peace.

According to Unicef 2014 has been the worst year for millions of children across the world. With growing conflicts arising across the globe innocent children have been forcibly exposed to violence, kidnapped or targeted and forced in to warring groups.

Western foreign policy vis-à-vis Iraq & Syria is an incoherent and ineffective mess. It is becoming painfully obvious that the lazily sporadic Western/coalition air strikes in the two countries, particularly in Iraq, are proving ineffective at pushing back ISIS, let alone defeating it.

Then there's the physical harm to girls. In some cases, it's fatal. A child bride is likely to become sexually active at a young age, while her body is still developing, and she may not have much understanding of reproduction and sexual health. Child brides often find it difficult to discuss family planning methods or sexual practices openly with their husbands. And they often face pressure from family members to become pregnant quickl